House of Lords: Conventions

Viscount Montgomery of Alamein Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Viscount Montgomery of Alamein]

To ask the Leader of the House what assessment he has made of the importance of behavioural and procedural conventions in the Chamber.

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)]

My Lords, self-regulation works only when Members act to support it. It puts the responsibility on us all as individual Members, in our political groups and on the Cross Benches, to ensure that the rules set out in the Companion and the conventions of the House are adhered to in spirit as well as in letter.

[Viscount Montgomery of Alamein]

My Lords, that is a very helpful reply, but does the noble Lord not agree that too many bad habits have been brought from the other place and are causing a problem, such as interrupting in timed debates and not giving way at Question Time? In a self-regulating House, these are extremely important and valuable parts of our procedure.

House of Lords: Post-legislative Scrutiny

Viscount Montgomery of Alamein Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

That is really rich coming from the noble Lord, Lord Howarth. He supported a Government who, over the past 13 years, gave rise to an outpouring of legislation quite unlike anything that we have ever seen in our history. Constitutional changes were dreamt up on the back of an envelope and introduced to Parliament with minimal thought and discussion and with no pre-announcement.

[Viscount Montgomery of Alamein]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, it is certainly my intention to have discussions with the noble Baroness the Leader of the Opposition and with the Convenor of the Cross Benches as to how we should progress this and whether, before doing so, we should perhaps have a more general debate on the working practices of the House.

[Viscount Montgomery of Alamein]

My Lords, would the noble Lord be prepared to consider introducing sunset clauses to all legislation as a means of reducing the volume of legislation from recent levels? If not, what about introducing the repeal of legislation to reduce some of the legislation that we have had?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, it is certainly our intention shortly to bring before Parliament a Bill that will repeal some of the highly authoritarian legislation that was passed under the previous Government. As far as sunset clauses are concerned, in many instances they are extremely desirable.